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FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

HOWARD J. CHIDLEY 



Fifty-Two Story Talks 

TO BOYS AND GIRLS 



BY 

REV. HOWARD J. CHIDLEY, B. D. 

PASTOR TRINITY CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 
EAST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY 




HODDER & STOUGHTON 

NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






Copyright, 1914, by 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



m 10 1914 

©CI,A376242 



^ 



TO 

MY DAUGHTER 



FOREWORD 

No DEPARTMENT of Christian literature is of 
more importance for the future of the Church 
than that which seeks to enlist the children in 
the service of Christ. Mr. Chidley, by his gifts 
and experience as a pastor and a teacher of the 
young, is eminently fitted to contribute towards 
this most vital phase of Christian activity. His 
successful career in the Central Congregational 
Church of Brooklyn, where I shared the privi- 
lege of his valuable co-operation, and in the 
Trinity Church of East Orange, New Jersey, 
of which he is now the beloved and honored 
pastor, bespeak the merits of this series of ad- 
dresses to Boys and Girls. They are at once an 
efficient protest against the Protestant neglect 
of the young and a remedy for that neglect. 
Parents, instructors, and guardians of the juve- 
nile members of our Churches will be wise to 
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the 
teachings and exhortations presented here. It 
vii 



viii FOREWORD 

is a book of absorbing interest, and the little 
folks and those of older years can not fail to 
be both profited and delighted by it. The revo- 
lution in Christian thought concerning the rela- 
tion of children to the Church and the Kingdom 
of God is apparent on every page. Dr. Marti- 
neau averred that children do not require to be 
led so much as not to be misled, and in these 
"Fifty-two Stories" we have a model applica- 
tion of his weighty aphorism. The receptive 
and expansive hours of child nature are admir- 
ably considered, and what is here written has 
a direct bearing upon its spiritual development 
and welfare. S. Parkes Cadman. 

The Parish House, 
Central Congregational Church, 
Brooklyn, N. Y., March 2, 19 14. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction, xiii 

A Bible Riddle, 3 

Closed Gates, 6 

Hiring a Coachman, . . . . 9 

The Fiercest Thing in the Bible, - - 11 

Sacrifice Hits, 13 

The Liberty of Obedience, - - - 15 

Cutting Corners, - - - - - 18 

Habits, - 20 

A Lesson in Courtesy, - - - - 23 

Little Foxes, 25 

A Tricky Ox, 28 

"Shine Inside," 30 

The Storm King Eagle, - - - 33 

A Dog Which Ate the Bible, - - - 35 

Steam and Sails, 37 

A Fish-Story, - 39 

Opportunity, 41 

God Is Now Here, 43 

ix 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

David Livingstone's Faith, - - - 45 

The Happy Man, 47 

A Sermon for the Boys, - - - - 49 

Tire-Trouble^ 51 

Watching for Idle Boys, - - - - 53 

Christ and the Dog, - - - . 55 

The Boy Who Was to be Manager, - 58 

A Tale About Words, - - - - 61 

Suffocated Trees, 64 

Ulysses and the Sirens, - - - 66 

Poison-Labels, 68 

Lies that Walk, 71 

Wellington and the Soldier, - - - 73 

Abraham's Guest, 75 

About Generosity, 78 

Sun and Wind, 80 

The Boy and the Turtle, - - - 82 

The Boy and the Nickel, - - - 84 

The Three Fates, 86 

The Inch-Worm and the Mountain, - 88 

The French Drummer-Boy, - - - 91 

A King in the Stuff, - - - - 93 

Bread and Wine, 96 



CONTENTS. * xi 



PAGE 



The First Christmas Carol, - - - 98 
A Hint from a Caribou, - - - lOO 
The Repentance of Samuel Johnson, - 103 

Easter, 105 

The Whispering Gallery, - - - 108 

The He-Said Girl, - - - - 111 

On Deck, 113 

The Terror by Night, - - - - 116 
The Bramble Bush King, - - - - 119 
Where Is Heaven? - . . . 122 
The Christian Army, 124 



INTRODUCTION 

In a certain Western university the president 
receives a salary of ten thousand dollars a year 
for training young men and young women, 
while not many miles distant from that uni- 
versity is a stock-farm the superintendent of 
which receives a salary of twelve thousand 
dollars for training high-bred colts. That colt- 
trainer is at hand when the colt is foaled, and 
before it rises to its feet has rubbed down its 
head and put a halter upon it, so that from 
birth it shall be accustomed to the feeling of 
the halter. 

From that time the training of the colt is 
not suspended for a moment. If in training 
it to travel in harness a piece of paper should 
blow across the training-course, causing the 
colt to shy, an assistant holds the paper on the 
opposite side of the road, so that the animal 
shall have the kink taken out of its nervous 
system and its tendency to shy again in the 
same direction be at once corrected, 
xiii 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

The old method was to allow a colt to 
run wild until two or three years of age, then 
*'break it in." The result was apt to be either 
a "cowed" animal or a nervous horse. 

Would that we were manifesting as much 
wisdom in the religious training of our children 
as that horse-trainer. But unfortunately we 
are pursuing largely the old method, allowing 
our children to get full of all sorts of mental 
kinks up through those first plastic three or 
four years, and then handing them over to the 
church kindergarten-teacher for one hour a 
week, expecting her to straighten out all these 
aberrations and give back to the parents a nor- 
mally religious child. 

Many parents seem to assume that the 
child's brain is lying dormant during those first 
few years, when, as a matter of fact, the child's 
mind during these years is most receptive, and 
expanding at a rate never after equalled. The 
nervous system, is receiving impressions which, 
though in after-years the child has no conscious 
memory of it, are yet indelibly chiselled there 
for good or ill. 



INTRODUCTION xv 

It is high time that parents and religious 
teachers took more cognizance than they do 
of this fact. 

There are other parents who deliberately 
refuse to give their children any religious 
training during this period for fear of "unduly 
influencing" them from the religious stand- 
point. This point of view is stated, whether 
seriously or not, in the following quotation 
from a recent writer: "I think it is a bad thing 
to be what is known as 'brought up,' do n't 
you? Why should we — poor, helpless little 
children, all soft and resistless — be squeezed 
and jammed into the iron bands of parental 
points of view? Why should we have points 
of view at all? Why not for those few divine 
years when we are still so near God, leave us 
just to wonder? We are not given a chance. 
On our pulpy little minds our parents carve 
their opinions, and the mass slowly hardens, 
and all those deep, narrow, up-and-down 
strokes harden with it, and the first thing the 
best of us have to do on growing up is to waste 
precious time beating at the things, to try to 



3CV1 Introduction 

get them out. Surely the child of the most 
admirable and wise parents is richer with his 
own faulty but original point of view than he 
would be fitted out with the choicest selections 
of maxims and conclusions that he did not have 
to think out for himself. I could never be a 
schoolmistress. I should be afraid to teach 
the children. They know more than I do. 
They know how to be happy, how to live from 
day to day, in godlike indifference to what may 
come next. And is not trying to be happy the 
secret we spend our lives trying to guess? 
Why, then, should I, by forcing them to look 
through my stale eyes, show them, as through 
a dreadful magnifying-glass, the terrific possi- 
bilities, the cruel explosiveness of what they 
had been lightly tossing across the daisies, and 
thinking they were only toys?" 

All of which sounds very pretty, but when 
simmered down, the wisdom, if wisdom it be, 
of a statement like that can be compressed into 
the old adage, "Where ignorance is bliss 'tis 
folly to be wise." But the point is that the 
world has pretty generally come to the conclu- 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

slon that bliss is not necessarily the most health- 
ful thing, either for adults or children. "Soft 
and resistless!" Precisely, there is the crux. 
If these "soft and resistless" minds do not re- 
ceive good impressions they will receive bad 
ones, and it is the part of wisdom to get the 
good in first. Where a mind is "to let," some 
sort of tenant is sure to occupy. 

Coleridge put the case in a nutshell when 
an English deist inveighed bitterly against the 
rigid instruction of Christian homes. The deist 
said: "Consider the helplessness of a little 
child. Before it has wisdom or judgment to 
decide for itself, it is prejudiced in favour of 
Christianity. How selfish is the parent who 
stamps his religious ideas into a child's recep- 
tive nature, as a moulder stamps the hot iron 
with his model ! I shall prejudice my children 
neither for Christianity nor for Buddhism, nor 
for Atheism, but allow them to wait for their 
mature years. Then they can open the ques- 
tion and decide for themselves." Later Cole- 
ridge led his friend into the garden, and then 
whimsically exclaimed: "How selfish is the 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

gardener to ruthlessly stamp his prejudice In 
favour of roses, violets and strawberries into 
a receptive garden-bed. The time was when 
in April I pulled up the young weeds, — the 
parsley, the thistles, — and planted the garden- 
beds out with vegetables and flowers. Now I 
have decided to permit the garden to go until 
September. Then the black clods can choose 
for themselves between cockleburrs, currants 
and strawberries." The deist saw the point. 
Another weakness in our system of religious 
training for children is manifest at the adoles- 
cence-period of the child. We have been in the 
habit of allowing the child to consider the Bible- 
school as his church. We send him to the Bible- 
school In his very early years, but make no 
demands upon him as far as specific church- 
attendance Is concerned. And at the kinder- 
garten-period we are probably wise In this ; for 
after the child has attended kindergarten for 
an hour, it is too great a tax upon him to re- 
quire him to sit through an hour's church- 
service. But after the kindergarten-period it 
seems to me the plain duty of parents to en- 



INTRODUCTION xix 

courage the child to attend church, though not 
necessarily for the entire service; for if the 
child does not establish a church-going habit 
during these plastic years, the probability Is 
that he will never form it. This partially ex- 
plains why there Is such a leakage between the 
Bible-school and the church. When the child 
gets "too old for Bible-school," not having 
formed the church-going habit, he is stranded 

"Between two worlds, 
One dead, the other powerless to be born." 

And the result Is he drifts away from the 
Church. 

In the endeavour to remedy this situation 
In his own Church It has been the custom of 
the writer to have all children from seven to 
twelve years of age In the Bible-school, which 
meets on Sunday morning before church, at- 
tend the morning worship for the first fifteen 
minutes. During this time they hear the Call 
to Worship, the Invocation, the Lord's Prayer, 
the Children's Sermon, and the Anthem by the 
choir. At the close of the anthem the children 



XX INTRODUCTION 

file out with their teachers as the adult congre- 
gation rises for the Responsive Lesson. In 
this way the children are establishing a church- 
going habit, with the result that they early 
begin to feel that something is wrong on Sun- 
day if they have not been to church. 

A word as to the content of the sermons 
preached. I believe that a child's religion 
ought to be largely of the motor type. That 
is, it should be concerned with getting religion 
into the child's hands and feet. In other words, 
it should seek to establish in him a habit of 
right-doing. For this reason his religion should 
be of the most practical sort, leaving the theory 
to come later. He should have sufficient the- 
ological pegs to hang his morality on, but he 
should be troubled little with dogma. For this 
reason his religion will probably have largely to 
do with the here and now. He cannot be much 
interested in an other-worldly religion. The 
normal child at this period will not sing with 
any great enthusiasm "I want to be an angel." 
For this world is to him just then a very inter- 
esting and fascinating place. He is for that 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

reason ready also to admire men of action, and 
is wide open for the Influences of hero-worship. 
And while he cannot be argued into being a 
Christian, for he is not suflUciently awake to 
logic; and while he cannot be coerced, for he 
possesses the dynamic of a locomotive com- 
bined with the resistance of a mule, he can be 
magnetized into being a Christian if there is 
set as his teacher and example a virile, mag- 
netic man. The boy will open his soul to him 
as he does his windows to welcome the breath 
of May. Such considerations as these have 
determined the content of these sermons. 

The author makes no claim to originality 
for much of the material presented, but he has 
given a new setting to old truths, a setting 
which experience has proved to be interesting 
to the children of his own congregation. 

It may seem that the wording of some of 
these sermons is beyond the grasp of the chil- 
dren for whom it was intended. Two things 
are to be noted in this connection. First, a child 
resents being talked down to. He soon detects 
a condescending smile and mock affability in a 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

speaker. And when he detects these he closes 
the door of his heart against the message. 
Second, it is better to give the child something 
to grow to, provided it is not too far beyond his 
grasp. But here again experience is the best 
criterion. The children who have heard these 
sermons have enjoyed them, and have carried 
their substance and lessons home with them to 
repeat to older ears. 

They are offered to the public, therefore, 
In the hope that they may suggest a method, 
add a little to the scant supply of material for 
children's sermons, and serve to interest other 
children as well. H. J. C. 

Orange, New Jersey. 



FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS TO 
BOYS AND GIRLS 



A BIBLE-RIDDLE 

Boys and girls are all fond of riddles, and I 
am sure you will be surprised to know that 
there is one of the best riddles of all in the 
Bible, one that is very hard to guess, and yet 
one that has a fine lesson in it when I tell you 
the answer. 

This riddle was told by Samson on his 
wedding-day, and nobody would ever have 
guessed it if his wife had not let the secret out. 

But first I must tell where Samson got his 
riddle. Well, one day with his father and 
mother he was walking down the road to the 
land where the Philistines lived. And accord- 
ing to the story, a young lion rushed out at 
him from behind some bushes, and Samson, 
being a very strong man, broke its jaws and 
killed it, and left its carcass behind some bushes 
by the roadside. 

Some time afterward he was going down 
that road again, and he turned aside to see 

3 



4 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

what had become of the carcass. And what do 
you think he found there? This: a swarm of 
wild bees had made their nest in that carcass. 
Now, Samson was fond of honey, and he took 
the comb of honey with him and ate it as he 
walked along the road. And as he walked he 
made up this riddle: "Out of the eater came 
forth meat, and out of the strong came forth 
sweetness." That means that out of this lion 
which would have eaten him up he got some- 
thing to eat, and out of this strong beast he 
got something sweet. 

I suppose you will wonder what sort of les- 
son for boys and girls anyone can draw from 
that. You say you will never meet a lion on 
the roadside. 

I am not so sure of that. I think boys and 
girls meet things every day that are very much 
like lions. Of course, in these days we call 
them temptations. But, then, they jump out at 
you very suddenly and unexpectedly sometimes. 
And they would devour your souls just as this 
lion would have eaten up Samson had he not 
killed it. And when you kill a temptation by 



A BIBLE-RIDDLE 5 

not giving way to it you can make a riddle just 
like Samson, and you can say, too, "Out of the 
eater came forth meat, and out of the strong 
came forth sweetness." For just like Samson, 
every time you come to the place where you 
have overcome a temptation, — it may be to say 
unkind things, or to be quick-tempered, or to 
be hateful, — you will find that you will be 
stronger to overcome It next time. And the 
remembrance of how you were able to over- 
come your feelings will be sweet, just as that 
honey was to Samson. God says that if we 
trust Him, "the young lion shall ye trample 
under foot." 



CLOSED GATES 

If any of you boys and girls, while riding 
through a great city on an express train, ever 
chance to put your head out of the car-window 
and look forward along the tracks, you will see 
several blocks ahead of the train people in car- 
riages, on foot, and in street-cars crossing the 
railway-tracks in great numbers, and it seems 
as if the train would have to stop, or else it 
would run over somebody. But the train never 
slackens speed. The engineer keeps on blow- 
ing the whistle, and the train thunders along at 
the usual rate. 

Then you will notice when you get near 
those crossings that all the gates are down and 
the railway-tracks are perfectly clear. 

That is the way with many of the difficulties 
we face in life. We set out to do the thing our 
conscience tells us to do, and It seems as If the 
road were full of obstructions. But you just 
go straight ahead, determined to do your duty, 

6 



CLOSED GATES 7 

and lo, the hindrances disappear. When an 
earnest man goes right ahead, the crowd usually 
opens up to let him through. 

As you get older and face the world you 
will find it looks like a great, fierce giant. But 
really its fierce look is caused by a false-face 
that it wears to frighten faint-hearted people. 
You go boldly up and take hold of his beard, 
as David faced the giant, and you will be sur- 
prised to find that not only the beard but the 
whole mask comes off in your hands, and there 
is a kindly countenance behind. For the world 
would rather see you succeed than fail. 

I heard of a young man the other day who 
went into an office in Chicago to sell a bill of 
goods. The man behind the desk was very 
brusque and fierce-looking, and snapped out, 
"Well, what do you want here?" 

The young man promptly replied, "I want 
first to be treated as a gentleman, and then I 
may talk business to you." 

The other man dropped his fierce manner 
at once, and the young man sold him a large 
bill of goods. The man behind the desk told 



8 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

him when he was leaving that he greeted stran- 
gers fiercely to try their mettle, and if they ran 
away he concluded they were n't worth trou- 
bling with anyhow. 

And so I say to you, boys and girls, be sure 
in your own minds that you are doing right, 
then go boldly ahead, and you will find the 
gates down and the tracks clear. Let this be 
your motto : 

"Silken-handed stroke a nettle, 

And it stings you for your pains. 
Grasp it like a man of mettle, 
And it soft as silk remains." 



HIRING A COACHMAN 

There is a story that tells of a man who ad- 
vertised for a coachman, and three men an- 
swered the advertisement. They all made a 
good appearance, and the man was at a loss 
to know which one to choose. 

Finally he hit upon this scheme. There 
was a road near his house that ran along the 
edge of a precipice. The man asked each one 
of these coachmen in turn how close he could 
drive to the cliff without going over. The first 
said he could drive within six inches of it; the 
second said he could drive within two inches 
of it. When the third man was asked he said, 
*'I should keep away from it as far as possible." 
The man said, "You are the coachman I 
want." 

The way that last coachman felt about the 
precipice is the way for boys and girls to feel 
about temptation. Some things that are wrong 
are like thin ice: they tempt you to see how 
far you can go, and the first thing you know 

9 



lo FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

you are in. A boy, especially, is tempted to be 
what is known as a "daredevil;" that is, one 
who is not afraid of anything. But there is 
nothing in it, boys. That sort of thing is not 
courage: it is rashness, which is just another 
name for foolishness. 

Shakespeare once said: 

"I dare do all that may become a man, 
Who dares do more is none." 

The really brave boy is not the one that 
blusters and brags: the brave boy is usually 
quiet, but, as we say, "all there" when the 
pinch really comes. 

Christ was one of the bravest men the 
world ever knew, and yet He told us to be 
afraid, actually afraid, of things that hurt our 
souls. 

Do not see how near the fire you can go 
without getting scorched; don't see how near 
sin you can go without getting caught. It is 
poor business. Take this as your motto when 
you are inclined to tamper with wrong: "Who 
eats with the devil needs a long-handled spoon." 
The farther you keep away from him, the 
better. 



THE FIERCEST THING IN THE BIBLE 

I SUPPOSE if I should ask you which is the 
fiercest animal mentioned in the Bible, I should 
get many different answers. Some of you 
would say the lion; some, the bear; some the 
panther; some, the wolf; and so on. But none 
of these is right, and I will tell you why. All 
of these animals can be tamed, more or less; 
but there is one fiercer thing than all these, and 
it cannot be tamed, so one of the apostles says. 

It is kept behind two red doors and more 
than twenty white bars, and its name is spelled 
as follows: T-O-N-G-U-E. Yes, that is it, the 
tongue. James says, "The tongue can no man 
tame." 

It is not only one of the fiercest things 
mentioned in the Bible, but it is also one of 
the cruelest. I suppose you never thought that 
you could kill a person with your tongue, did 
you? And yet I have known some people say 
such mean things about others that those people 

3 II 



12 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

were killed as far as living in their town was 
concerned, and had to move away, for all their 
influence was dead. 

A pretty safe way when you are tempted 
to say anything unkind about another boy or 
girl, who is not present, is to ask yourself if 
it is fair play, since the other cannot defend 
himself; for I know that you all want to play 
fair. That is the basis of all true sport. 

And then remember also that when once 
you have said an unkind thing you cannot take 
it back, for it lives on in spite of you. 

Perhaps you recollect the interesting Idea 
which the old Hebrews had of the separate 
existence of words as soon as they were spoken. 
A curse once uttered could not be recalled be- 
cause it now existed independently of the 
speaker. You remember the story of the bless- 
ing of Jacob by Isaac. Isaac could not give it 
to Esau, because it had passed beyond his con- 
trol. 

"Boys flying kites, haul in their white-winged birds; 
You can't do that way when you're flying words, 
Things that we think may sometimes fall back dead, 
But God Himself can't kill them when they're said." 



SACRIFICE HITS 

I HOPE that all you boys play baseball, and that 
many of you are on baseball teams. If you 
are, I suppose you know what is meant by a 
sacrifice hit. 

It is called a "sacrifice hit" when the score 
is close and a player comes to the bat, and, al- 
though he would like to make a run, neverthe- 
less, for the sake of the man on the base, he 
makes a "bunt," so that, while the pitcher or 
shortstop runs up to get the ball and put him 
out on first base, the man on the bases may 
make another base. 

You see, then, that instead of making 
what is called a "grand-stand play" he just 
gives up his ov/n glory for the sake of his team. 

Did you ever think that your parents are 
constantly making "sacrifice hits" for you? 
Whenever your mother goes without a new 
dress in order that you may have a better suit 
of clothes ; whenever your father gives up some 

13 



14 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

pleasure to keep you In school, they are making 
a sacrifice hit for you. 

And after all, boys and girls, that is about 
the only way the world has ever moved very 
far ahead. Socrates, an old Greek, made a 
sacrifice hit when he was put to death in prison 
with poison, because he wanted to make the 
young men of Athens wiser. Martin Luther 
made a sacrifice hit when he went to Worms, 
although he feared the Pope would kill him. 
But he was determined to get liberty for the 
people. 

But the biggest sacrifice hit that was ever 
made was made by Christ when He was cruci- 
fied on Calvary, in order that the world might 
know that God was a Father and loved His 
children. 

And every boy and girl who would follow 
in the footsteps of Christ, and would be strong 
and noble, must be prepared to make sacrifice 
hits, — to forget themselves and do things for 
the sake of others. Jesus said, 'T came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister." And 
a minister is one who serves, one who makes 
sacrifice hits. 



THE LIBERTY OF OBEDIENCE 

I KNOW it would seem strange if I told you 
that every boy and girl has to be tied to some- 
thing in order that he may be free. And yet 
that is the exact truth. 

The majority of you no doubt know what 
the multiplication-table is, and I am sure you 
have thought it a pretty disagreeable thing. 
Perhaps you have wondered why seven times 
eight is always fifty-six, and why your teacher 
insists that it shall be that every time. You 
don't see why it can't be fifty-five just once, or 
possibly fifty-seven. But, no, sir; it is always 
fifty-six. 

When you get farther along in life I be- 
lieve you will be glad to know that seven times 
eight is always fifty-six, whether you meet it in 
the grocery-store, or in the bank, or in New 
York, or in Philadelphia, or in China; for it 
will be a comfort to know that the multiplica- 
tion-table does not change, like many other 
things, as you go from place to place. When- 

15 



1 6 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

ever or wherever you meet it, it is always the 
same. Now, because you were tied to that 
table as a boy or girl, you will be free to go 
where you like with it in after-life. 

The same is true about riding a bicycle. 
You know that in order to be free to ride a 
bicycle you must obey the rules of riding it; 
that is, when you are in danger of falling to the 
right you must turn the front wheel to the 
right. If you do not, you will fall off. 

Here again, you see, you must be tied in 
order to be free. 

You will find that a rule all through life. 
That is why your parents and teachers lay 
down so many rules for you. It is not because 
they want to hedge you in and torment you, 
but that you may be free men and women later. 

Boys and girls who are never tied up, 
sooner or later find that as men and women 
they are not free. Marie Antoinette, Queen 
of France, would not be tied up to any rules 
as a girl. She was wilful and wild, so in later 
life she caused the death of her husband and 
herself. 



LIBERTY OF OBEDIENCE 17 

That same rule Is even true of stars. Com- 
ets are tramp stars. They refuse to be tied up, 
and they ramble about all over the sky. So 
they never have trees and flowers on them. 
Our earth, on the other hand, is tied up to the 
sun and goes round it like a horse round a race- 
track, and so it is bound by seasons and brings 
forth beautiful trees and flowers. 

Among other disadvantages of being a comet 
is that comets are in danger of losing a great 
part of their substance every time they approach 
the sun. Halley's comet, which used to be such 
a wonderful sight, has dwindled away to a very 
great extent. When it came a few years ago 
scarcely any one saw it. 

So it is always : to be really free and to grow 
you must be tied; and I hope that none of you 
children will ever be fretful when your parents 
and teachers make rules that you do not see the 
meaning of, but which are for your good. 



CUTTING CORNERS 

Have you boys and girls ever noticed how all 
the curbings at the corners of the streets in 
the city are worn smooth by drivers of carts 
and wagons trying to cut the corners as closely 
as possible? 

But the principal thing to notice about those 
curbs is that you will often find on them the 
paint, sometimes red and sometimes black or 
yellow, scratched off the wheels of these car- 
riages that are so anxious to cut corners. And 
the wheels that cut corners soon get to looking 
shabby from lack of paint. 

That is the way it nearly always happens 
with people who try to cut corners. I know 
boys and girls who try it in school. 

They try to skim through by doing just as 
little work as possible. They cut the corners 
as closely as possible with their lessons, so that 
they can have time for play. They do that 
with the work in subtraction, and then, when 

i8 



CUTTING CORNERS 19 

they get into multiplication or division, they 
have all sorts of trouble. And soon their arith- 
metic looks very shabby indeed. 

Other boys and girls try to cut corners with 
the truth. They see just how near a lie they 
can come, and yet keep within the bounds of 
truth. Something inside tells them it is not 
quite fair. And again, when that happens, 
they have rubbed some of the bright, beautiful 
paint, so to speak, off their consciences. And 
before long their consciences get to be quite 
shabby, and not at all new, and people begin 
to say that they don't quite trust that boy or 
girl. 

And so I say to you, boys and girls, it does 
not pay to cut corners. Give yourselves plenty 
of room. Be open and fair and industrious. 
For one who cuts close corners as a boy or girl, 
usually grows up into a very small sort of man 
or woman. 



HABITS 

I WONDER if I can make plain to you what a 
habit is. Have you ever seen men laying con- 
crete sidewalks here in the city, and they put 
boards across to keep people from walking on 
the pavements before they were thoroughly 
dry? I am sure you have. These men keep 
people oft the walk while it is soft because, if 
any one steps on it, then his footprints harden 
into the walk as it dries, and will always remain 
there. 

Now, boys' and girls' minds are just like 
those cement walks when they are wet and 
soft; and if you do a thing over and over again 
as a boy or girl, you will make such a deep 
mark in your brains that when you grow up you 
cannot get the mark out, and you just keep on 
doing it, whether you want to or not. 

When once you do a thing, it is easier to 
do it again. Even cloth and paper find it easier 
to do a thing a second time than the first. The 

20 



HABITS 21 

sleeves of your dresses and coats fall Into the 
same wrinkles and creases every time you put 
them on. That Is what we call the "hang" of 
a dress or coat. And if you fold a piece of 
paper once, it quickly gets the habit of folding 
along the same crease again. 

And so you see that it is very important for 
you to get good habits as boys and girls, for 
first you make the habits, and then the habits 
make you. 

You have often seen a little brook running 
along between Its banks and over its pebbly 
bed. Well, once there was no brook-bed there, 
but gradually, years ago, a little stream began 
to trickle through, and finally it wore out a bed 
for Itself. Now it cannot leave the bed if it 
wishes to. That Is just what you do when you 
make a habit: you make a course which you 
will follow later In life. 

First you take the train, then the train takes 
you. First the stream makes the bed, then the 
bed guides the stream. 

They tell us that after we are thirty years 
of age we are httle more than a bundle of 



22 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

habits. I suppose thirty years seems a long 
way off for you boys and girls, but you will 
reach It if you live. And there will be men 
living somewhere who will hear the name that 
you boys now have, and you are deciding now 
by the habits you make what sort of man he is 
going to be. If you want him to be a good, 
honorable, strong man, be sure you form good 
habits now. 



A LESSON IN COURTESY 

I READ a Story recently of how a young man 
got his start in life through being courteous. 
This young man was an assistant doorkeeper in 
the capitol at Washington. His work was to 
direct people where they wanted to go in that 
great building. 

One day he overheard a stranger ask one 
of the other doorkeepers for help in finding one 
of the senators from California. The door- 
keeper answered in a very discourteous way 
that it was none of his business where the sena- 
tors were. 

''But can't you help me?" the stranger said. 
"I was sent over here because he was seen to 
come this way." 

"No, I can't," the doorkeeper answered. 
"I have trouble enough looking after the rep- 
resentatives." 

The stranger was about to turn away when 
an assistant, who had overheard the conver- 
sation, said: "If you are from California, you 

23 



24 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

have come a long way. I will try to help you." 
Then he asked him to take a seat, and hurried 
off in search of the senator. 

He soon brought him to the stranger, who 
then gave his card to the doorkeeper and asked 
him to call at his hotel that evening. 

That stranger was Collis P. Huntington, 
who was a great railroad official in those days. 

When the doorkeeper called upon him that 
night, Mr. Huntington offered him a position 
at nearly twice the salary he was then receiv- 
ing. He accepted the new position and was 
rapidly promoted from that time on. 

The lesson I would have you learn from 
this is that you never know when a good deed 
is going to return to you. I don't mean that 
you should be courteous, expecting that you are 
going to be paid for it each time, for the great- 
est pay for kindness is just the feeling that you 
have helped someone. As the old saying goes, 
*'Civility costs nothing," and on the other hand, 
you never gain anything by getting the ill-will 
of anybody or anything, even of a dog. Be 
courteous : it is the mark of a gentleman, of a 
lady, and it is often the passport to success. 



LITTLE FOXES 

In far-off Syria, a country lying northeast of 
Palestine, the land in which Jesus was born, the 
farmers who keep vineyards are very much 
troubled with foxes and bears, which destroy 
their crops at night. And so, to protect their 
vineyards, they build high stone-walls about 
them, and put broken bottles on the top to keep 
these animals out, much as some people in this 
country who have orchards do, in order to keep 
out small boys. 

These fences keep out the bears, because 
they cut themselves on the glass in trying to 
climb over, and they also keep out some of the 
foxes. But after all, when the grapes are 
nearly ripe, the owners of the vineyards and 
their men are obliged to build platforms up 
above the trellises, and stay there all night, in 
order to guard their crops. These watchers 
manage very well with all the other wild ani- 
mals excepting the little foxes. They can see 

25 



26 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

the big foxes and drive them off, but the little 
ones they cannot see, and so these destroy the 
vines. I suppose that it was an experience 
something like that which led one of the Bible- 
writers to say that the little foxes destroy the 
vines. 

It seems to me that this is very true with 
sins, too; it is the little sins that destroy us. 
When a big sin like steahng, lying or cheating 
comes along we can see that easily enough, and 
we will not let it over the fence into our lives. 
We drive it away, and are soon rid of it. But 
when the little sins come, like little foxes, we 
do not see them, and so they get in and destroy 
our character. 

What are some of these Uttle foxes? I think 
one is pride, which makes you so conceited, 
because you live in a big house or have an auto- 
mobile or fine clothes, that you will not speak 
to or play with other boys and girls who have 
not quite such fine things, although they may 
be just as bright and just as good as you. Pride 
is a little fox that kills the vine of brotherliness 
which Christ planted in our hearts. 



LITTLE FOXES 27 

Then another little fox is sulkiness. Sulki- 
ness makes you frown and go away in a corner. 
It sucks up all the sunlight there is, and makes 
the world very gray and dull, like a day in No- 
vember. This fox kills the vine called "peace" 
which Christ planted. 

One more little fox is jealousy. This makes 
boys and girls dislike others who get higher 
marks than they in school, or who have more 
friends, or better toys. It is one of the most 
destructive little foxes there is, for it kills the 
best vine of all that Christ planted: that is, 
love. 

Be careful, then, boys and girls, of these 
little foxes, for they are worse than bears and 
big foxes, because they look so small and harm- 
less, and slip by when you are not paying at- 
tention, but which destroy your character as 
readily as the others. 



A TRICKY OX 

I WANT to tell you to-day about a tricky ox I 
once read about. I suppose you will at once 
think that this ox was in a circus. But he 
wasn't. Far from it! It would have been bet- 
ter for some other cattle if he had been. 

This ox is kept in the stockyards at Chi- 
cago. In those stockyards they kill thousands 
of cattle every year to give us beef to eat. 
When the cattle come to these stockyards they 
are not tame cattle like the cows we see out in 
our pastures, but they are cattle that have pas- 
tured out on the great broad prairies, and they 
have seen very few people. And for that rea- 
son they are very timid and hard to get close 
to. So it is difficult to get them near the pens 
where they want them. 

Here is where the tricky ox comes in. In 
one of those yards they keep a black, short- 
tailed ox known as "Bob," and he just walks 
along in an unconcerned way toward the pens, 
28 



A TRICKY OX 29 

and he looks so calm and unafraid that the 
other cattle just take confidence and follow 
along after him. And then, before they know 
it, they are in a trap and can never get out. But 
in the meanwhile Bob has slipped away, to play 
the same trick on other cattle. 

There are some boys and girls just like that 
ox. They are always urging other boys and 
girls on to do wTong things, telling them that 
they are cowards if they don't take the "dare" 
and do it, and showing how brave they are. 
But when they have got you into a scrape, and 
the real business of punishment begins, they 
can't be found anywhere : they have slipped out 
like old Bob. 

You must be on the lookout for boys like 
that. Don't be afraid to be called a coward 
by them. Don't let them "dare" you to do 
things which your conscience tells you are fool- 
ish or wrong. You will be a bigger coward if 
you do these things because you are ashamed 
not to take the dare. 



SHINE INSIDE" 

As I WAS passing along the street the other 
day I saw on the window of a bootblack's par- 
lour the words, "Shine Inside." 

I want to turn these words around and 
make a motto of them for you boys and girls. 
For I think that if every boy and girl would 
shine inside, our homes, and the world in gen- 
eral, would be a much happier place. 

Of course there are some boys and girls 
who shine only on the outside. A little while 
ago I read a story about Byron, a great poet, 
of whom you will learn later in school. A 
man said to Sir Walter Scott that he wished he 
might have seen Byron when he was alive. He 
said he had only seen a photograph of him. 
Scott said, "Yes, the luster is there [in the 
photograph], but it is not lighted up." Now, 
there are some boys' and girls' faces that have 
a luster, but it is not lighted up. 

Or their faces are like a mirror that shines 
30 



''SHINE INSIDE" 31 

brightly only when there Is sunlight or some 
other light falling upon It. The mirror only 
shines outside. The luster Is not always lighted 
up. I know boys and girls who shine outside 
only when other boys and girls play the game 
which they want them to play, or when they get 
the clothes they want to wear or the food they 
want to eat, or when they are out In pleasant 
company. But when they don't have their own 
way, then their faces are very cloudy. 

But the boy or girl who shines inside is one 
who "irons out his wrinkles with a smile" even 
though things do not exactly please him, and 
he thinks of other people Instead of himself. 

Now, how can boys and girls shine Inside 
so that they will always shine outside whether 
they have their own way or not? Well, you 
remember that the Bible says that when Moses 
came down from the mountain his face shone, 
because he had been talking with God. That is 
the secret, boys and girls. When a man or a 
woman or a boy or a girl talks often enough 
with God in prayer and asks to be made like 
Christ, then a light is lighted within him which 



32 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

causes his face to shine. You remember Christ 
said, "I am the Light." Let Him into your 
heart, and you will shine inside. 

"The man worth while is the man with a smile 
When everything goes dead wrong." 



THE STORM-KING EAGLE 

If you have been up the Hudson River from 
New York to Albany by the day-boat, you will 
probably have noticed a high mountain on the 
right-hand side of the river by the name of 
Storm King. 

I want to tell you about an eagle that used 
to live there. He could be seen there almost 
any day soaring high above the mountain- 
peak. And many a hunter had tried to shoot 
him. But he avoided them all. And how 
do you think he did it? Did he hide from 
them? No. Just by flying so high that the 
bullets could not reach him, or, if some chance 
bullet did reach him, he was so far away that 
it just kissed his plumage and fell back to earth 
without doing him any harm. 

I wish that every boy and girl were as wise 
as that old eagle. That is always the way to 
avoid being wounded by sins : just keep high up 
above them. I mean by that, when you are 

2>2> 



34 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

tempted to do anything that is wrong, not to 
stop and argue with yourself whether you will 
get caught if you do it, or whether you will 
be happier if you do not do it, or any of these 
things by which you lose time. But just get 
right away from it ; put it out of your mind. 

I suppose you will wonder how you can do 
that. I will tell you. You have often heard 
about **wishing-caps," and how the people in 
fairy-stories put them on and just wish them- 
selves wherever they want to be, and quick as 
a flash they are there. Well, there is a wishing- 
cap that every boy and girl can put on when 
he is tempted; it is this prayer, "O God, help 
me not to do this thing which is wrong!" And 
if you say that prayer, and believe God will 
help you, it will take you high out of reach of 
the sin, just as that old eagle flew high above 
reach of the bullets. For God says that they 
who ask Him for help shall "mount up on 
wings as eagles." 



A DOG WHICH ATE THE BIBLE 

I HEARD an amusing story sometime ago about 
a savage in Africa who came to a missionary 
very much excited and told him that his dog 
had been completely spoiled as a watch-dog be- 
cause he had chewed up and eaten a small New 
Testament he had happened to get hold of. 
He said that the dog would never be of any 
more use because the New Testament which he 
had swallowed would take all the fight out of 
him, and he could no longer keep wild animals 
away from the sheep. 

That seems a strange notion for a grown-up 
man to get into his head, doesn't it? And yet, 
boys and girls, I run across some young people 
even here in America that think if they let 
Christ Into their hearts it will make them sort 
of "wishy-washy" and "goody-goody," and not 
strong and rugged people. 

It is true that to be a Christian does take 
some of the fight out of a person, but it is the 

35 



36 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

quarrelsome kind of fighting that has neither 
beauty nor strength in it which it takes out of 
one. But when you come to read history you 
will find that some of our bravest soldiers were 
Christians. John Havelock, a British general 
who fought in India for the sake of his country, 
was called ''The Christian Warrior." Sir Oli- 
ver Cromwell, who had to lead an army in Eng- 
land against the king, who was ill-treating the 
people, had a body of soldiers under him who 
were Christians, and they were such good sol- 
diers and so hard to defeat that they were 
called "Cromwell's Ironsides." Sometimes 
just before battle these soldiers used to sing 
hymns and then pray on the battlefields. And 
because they were Christians it made better and 
braver soldiers of them. 

And so the truest kind of courage that any 
boy or girl can have is the kind that Christ 
gives. Paul tells all of us Christians to be 
"good soldiers." The Bible takes the wrong 
kind of fight out of you and puts the right kind 
of fight into you, the fight for noble things. 



STEAM AND SAILS 

All the vessels on the oceans can be divided 
into two classes : steamships and sailing vessels. 
The saihng vessels, as you know, set their 
broad white sails like wings to catch the favour- 
ing winds, and then they go scudding across the 
seas like birds to their distant harbours. But 
when there is no wind these vessels must 
sometimes lie becalmed, and do not move for 
days or sometimes weeks. The steamships, on 
the other hand, do not depend upon the wind 
to drive them ahead. Their power comes from 
great engines away down in the heart of the 
vessel. Even if the wind blows right in the 
face of the ship, it only makes the boiler-fires 
burn faster and brighter, and she plunges ahead 
in spite of wind or tide. 

Boys and girls also can be divided into two 
classes, like ships. Some depend upon other 
boys and girls to make them go; others have 
the *'go" in themselves. These people with the 

37 



38 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

"go'' in themselves we call "go-ahead" sort of 
people. They are the boys and girls who be- 
come leaders. The others are followers. 

What the world most needs is these "go- 
ahead" people. There are plenty of people 
who go like a sailing vessel when there is some- 
thing from the outside to send them along. I 
heard a man say the other day that another 
man was like "a chip in a pan of milk;" that is, 
he went only where he was pushed. 

If you want to have "go" in yourselves, try 
to think things out for yourselves. Don't do 
things just because somebody else does them. 
Don't wear things just because somebody else 
wears them. Don't say things just because 
somebody else says them. Paul says that peo- 
ple who are blown about by every wind do not 
amount to much. I am sure of this, at least, 
that I should rather be a steamship than a 
sailing vessel, that only goes when a wind 
blows. 



A FISH-STORY 

A RECENT writer tells in one of his books of 
an experience he had as a boy when he went on 
a fishing-trip with his father. 

They were wading along in brooks with 
their rubber-boots on. But sometimes the water 
was too deep for him, and he was in danger 
of getting his feet wet by the water running in 
over the tops of his boots. When, however, 
they came to places like these, his father would 
take him pig-a-back and carry him along, and 
then the boy would fish with his rod resting on 
his father's shoulder, and his line dangling in 
front. And this writer says that he used to 
catch many fish in this way. Then he adds, 
"How many of our best catches in life are made 
over someone's else shoulder?" 

I think that fathers and mothers are always 
allowing their children to fish over their shoul- 
ders, don't you ? When they send you to school 
to get an education, so that in later life you 

39 



40 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

may enjoy good books, you are catching fish 
over their shoulders. When they give you 
money to travel, so that you may know what 
a big, beautiful place the world is, you are fish- 
ing over their shoulders. When they give you 
beautiful homes, so that you shall have good 
friends and grow up thoughtful, well-mannered 
men and women, you are fishing over their 
shoulders. 

In fact, it seems to me that we should not 
catch many fish at all if it were not for our 
loving, painstaking, unselfish parents. 

And don't you think we ought to be obe- 
dient and thoughtful of them when they carry 
us along so uncomplainingly and rejoice in see- 
ing us take in such beautiful catches from hfe? 



OPPORTUNITY 

Have you ever heard of a picture that was 
called "Opportunity?" It represents a person 
with a great deal of hair on her forehead, but 
none on the back of her head. The meaning of 
the picture is this: When you catch an oppor- 
tunity as it comes, it is easy to hold; but once 
you let it get by you, it is very difficult to catch 
it again. It Is something like trying to catch a 
train that has just pulled out of the station. 

I used to live near a boy in Canada who did 
not like to go to school, and when the snow 
was deep and the weather was frosty he would 
find some excuse by which he got his mother 
to let him stay at home. When he grew up he 
found out what he had missed by not getting 
an education, and he tried to make it up, but 
he could not. He was running after the train. 
He soon got discouraged and gave up, and 
tried to get his living in some other way than 
by hard work. The last I heard of him he 
had just been arrested for stealing. 

41 



42 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

I have known other boys and girls who 
thought of joining the Church, but they just 
kept putting it off and putting it off, thinking 
that any time would do well enough. And 
then, as they got older, they felt that they 
weren't good enough, or that some of their 
friends might not approve, and so they have 
grown up and have not yet joined, and each 
year it keeps growing harder. 

The two opportunities that you boys and 
girls ought to take "by the forelock," as we 
say, are, first: in getting all the schooling you 
can while you have the chance. You will never 
have such a good opportunity again, and if 
you let it slip you may never, never catch up. 
And second: in making as fine a start as you 
can in your Christian life by learning all you 
can about the Bible and by getting Christ's ex- 
ample into your hearts. 



GOD IS NOW HERE 

In a sermon which Dean Stanley, an English 
minister, preached to children in Westminster 
Abbey, he told the following story: * 'There was 
a little girl living with her grandfather. She 
was a good child, but he was not a very good 
man; and one day, when she came back from 
school, he had put in writing over her bed, 
'God is nowhere,' for he did not believe in the 
good God, and he tried to make the little girl 
believe the same as he. 

"What did the little girl do? She had no 
eyes to see, no ears to hear what her grand- 
father tried to teach her. She was very small. 
She could only read words of one syllable at a 
time; she rose above the bad meaning which 
he had tried to put into her mind, because her 
little mind could not do otherwise, and she read 
the words not 'God is nowhere,' but 'God is 
now here.' " 

And she was right. She was wiser than her 

' 43 



44 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

gray-haired grandfather. For God is now 
here. He is everywhere. And whenever even 
the smallest child speaks to Him in the simplest 
prayer He hears the child^s voice. God is now 
here. That is a good motto for us to take with 
us to school, to keep us honest ; to play, to keep 
us sweet; to our homes, to keep us unselfish. 



DAVID LIVINGSTONE'S FAITH 

No DOUBT you have all heard of David Living- 
stone, the great missionary to Africa. I wish 
to tell you a story of his faith in Christ. 

He was trying to cross one of the rivers of 
Africa one day with his little company of men, 
when the savages in that locality tried to pre- 
vent him. They gathered in large numbers 
with their spears and poisoned arrows and war- 
clubs, and blocked his way to the river. Living- 
stone and his little company were no match for 
these hostile warriors, and it looked as if he 
and his men would be killed. 

Then he thought of a scheme of waiting 
till nightfall and of crossing over under cover 
of the darkness. But later that seemed to him 
a cowardly thing to do, and he tells us how 
the verse in the Bible came back to him in 
which Jesus says: "All power is given unto Me 
in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and 
teach all nations . . . and lo ! I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." 

45 



46 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

The great missionary said of this verse : 
"It Is the word of a Gentleman of the most 
sacred and strictest honour, and there is an end 
on't. I feel quite calm now, thank God." 

Next morning he crossed the river without 
any difficulty, although the bank was lined with 
savages armed to the teeth. 

I think that Is always the way when we 
trust In Christ. He has promised never to 
leave us nor forsake us, and we can rely upon 
His word. 



THE HAPPY MAN 

Once upon a time there was a king who was 
very rich, but very unhappy. He had a beauti- 
ful marble palace, with extensive parks and 
grounds, fine horses and carriages, but he was 
not happy. 

So one day he called together his court- 
messengers, and sent them out into the world, 
telling them to travel far and wide until they 
found a man who was happy beyond all others, 
and when they found him, to take off his shirt 
and bring it to him. For he thought that per- 
haps by wearing this shirt he might gain the 
happiness he sought. 

The messengers went forth, and after a 
long search finally found a man who seemed 
happier than all his fellows. And as he sat 
singing in the sunshine the king's messengers 
pounced upon him to take away his shirt; but 
lo, when they took his coat off they found he 
had no shirt! 

47 



48 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

The story means this, that happiness does 
not depend upon what you have or have not. 
It comes from within, and not from without. 
If you have the right spirit you will have a song, 
riches or not. But if you have not the right 
spirit you will not be happy, no matter what 
you have. 



A SERMON FOR THE BOYS 

A TEACHER said the other day that ninety boys 
out of every hundred who fail in grammar 
schools and high-schools smoke tobacco. He 
says also that boys who smoke are nearly all 
unruly and disobedient in school. And he says 
again, that boys who get their lessons well and 
stand high in grammar-schools take lower 
marks in high-school if they begin to smoke in 
high-school. This ought to be enough to make 
any boy stop and think before he begins to 
smoke, for it shows that it not only hurts a 
boy's mind, but his morals also. 

I think the reason most boys take up smok- 
ing Is not because they like it, but because their 
schoolmates do it, and they want to be one of 
''the crowd." When you boil that down it 
means either that a boy wants to be smart, or 
else he has not courage enough to stand alone ; 
that is, he is a coward. 

You would not think much of a boy who 

49 



50 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

was about to enter a race and, just before he 
entered It, hurt his foot on purpose, so that 
he could not run his best, would you? Well, 
that Is just what every boy does who smokes : 
It hinders him In the race of life. You ought 
not to smoke before you are twenty-one years 
old, because your body Is not strong enough to 
stand It. The safest way is not to smoke at 
all, but at least don't smoke until you get your 
growth. 



TIRE-TROUBLE 

People who own automobiles have a great 
deal to say about "tire-trouble." There are a 
great many kinds of tire-trouble. In the first 
place, a tire often gets punctured by a nail run- 
ning into it. Then there are "blow-outs" 
caused by the inner tube giving way. Then 
there are leaky valves, by which the air slowly 
leaks out. There are also sand-blisters, caused 
by little particles of sand getting into the tire 
and making a swelling in it, which soon gives 
way. And finally tires may get rim-cut, which 
means that the steel rim which fastens them on 
wears them through by rubbing. The result of 
these things is what is known as a flat tire with 
all the air gone out, and the automobile bumps 
on the hard rim. 

Boys and girls have tire-troubles, too. I 
have seen boys and girls get so vexed about 
things that they just exploded in a burst of tem- 
per like a blow-out in a tire. I have known 

51 



52 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

them to run up against something sharp and dif- 
ficult which took all the buoyancy out of them, 
just like a nail causing a puncture in a tire. 
I have known them to tell a lie, although no- 
body else knew it, and it bothered them so in- 
side that it was like sand on the inside of the 
tire causing a sand-blister. I have known them 
to fret about things so that all their enthusiasm 
leaked away just as the tire that had a leaky 
valve. And finally I have known them to be 
rim-cut by associating with some sharp-tongued 
boy or girl. The result of all this was a flat 
tire, and these boys and girls just went bump- 
ing along without any happiness or lightness of 
heart. They couldn't get anywhere with their 
work or their play. 

The only cure that I know of for a boy or 
girl with a flat tire is more of God's uplifting 
strength. 

God says that they who trust in Him shall 
run, and not be weary. 



WATCHING FOR IDLE BOYS 

Probably all boys and girls whisper In school 
If they think the teacher will not catch them. 
Some teachers set boys and girls to watch one 
another and to tell on one another when they 
see anyone whispering. I do not think that is 
a fair thing to do, for it makes tell-tales of boys 
and girls. And tell-tales are never attractive. 
The story I am going to relate to you is 
about a teacher who set the pupils in a room 
to watch each other, and to tell if they caught 
anyone idle. One boy had a grudge against 
another, and he thought that now would be the 
time to get even with him. So he watched care- 
fully, and as soon as he found the other boy 
idling he called the teacher's attention to it. 
Of course every boy and girl waited anxiously 
to see what the teacher would do. And then 
something unexpected happened. The teacher 
said to the tell-tale : *'So you saw this boy idling, 
did you?" 

53 



54 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

*'Yes, sir/' quickly answered the boy. 

"Then," said the teacher, *'what were you 
doing when you found him idling?" The boy 
blushed, and hung his head. He not only had 
been caught idling himself, but playing a mean 
trick. That was a lesson for him: he never 
watched for idle boys again. And it ought to 
be a lesson for us, too, when instead of attend- 
ing to our own work, we neglect it, and try to 
get other people into trouble. 



CHRIST AND THE DOG 

My children's sermon to-day has to do with 
a legend. A legend is a story that has come 
down to us from the olden times, but which 
cannot be proved to be true. This legend is 
about Christ. 

It tells of how one day He was walking 
down a street in Jerusalem and saw a company 
of people gathered about a dead dog in the 
street. Now, city dogs in the land where Christ 
lived are not petted as they are in our own 
country. They act as scavengers, and live on 
whatever they can pick up. They are shaggy 
and dirty and yellow. The people stone them 
and kick them, and do not call them by kind 
names. 

So the people who had gathered about this 
dog were making unkind remarks about it, say- 
ing how ugly it was, when Christ came up, and 
looking at the dog. He said, "But do you see 
what beautiful, even, white teeth he has?" 

55 



56 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

Then, it Is said, the people knew this must be 
Christ, who could find something to praise even 
in a dog like that. 

But that was the way Christ always dealt 
with people. He always saw something good 
in them. And when people knew that Christ 
saw something good in them, they tried to hve 
up to what He saw, and to be good. 

You remember how Zaccheus, the little, 
short man who had been robbing the people 
by collecting too much tax-money, climbed up 
into a sycamore tree to see Christ pass by. 
Christ told him that He was going to take din- 
ner with him. And when Christ dined with 
him, Zaccheus felt that Christ thought he was 
better than he was, and he became so ashamed 
of what he had been doing that he went and 
gave the money back. 

And Christ's rule is a good rule for us to 
follow. If we wish people to be good, we must 
look for the good things in them. If we expect 
them to be good, they will try to be good. 
There is a jailer in Chicago who, when a man 
has served his term in jail, gives him a letter of 



CHRIST AND THE DOG 57 

recommendation so that he can get a job. And 
the men who get these letters are ashamed to 
do wrong and to get into jail again, because of 
the disappointment they will cause the jailer 
who believes in them. 

A girl once said to her mother, who was 
always finding something good instead of bad 
to say of people, ^'Mother, I believe you would 
have something good to say of the devil." 

*'Well," said her mother, *'we might all 
admire his perseverance." 

Try to see how many good things you can 
see in people. It's the best game of all to play. 



THE BOY WHO WAS TO BE MANAGER 

A BOY recently answered an advertisement of 
a certain firm in New York which wanted an 
office-boy. He went to the office, and as he 
was a bright, neat-looking boy, he made a good 
impression upon the manager. The manager 
liked him and told him to report for work the 
following morning. 

The boy was about to leave the office in 
great glee, when the manager called him back 
and asked him to write his name, in order that 
he might see whether or no he was a good 
writer. The boy wrote his name in such a 
miserable scrawl that the manager could hardly 
read it, and he told the boy that he was very 
sorry, but he would be obliged to cancel his 
agreement, and could not take him on. 

He then advised the boy to take lessons in 
penmanship, in order to improve his writing. 

"But," the boy said, "why do I need to 
be a good penman? Fm going to be a man- 

58 



BOY WAS TO BE MANAGER 59 

ager some day, and I'll have a stenographer to 
do my writing for me." 

*Tes," said the man, "that may be true. 
But before you get to be a manager anywhere 
you will have to work up to it through a great 
many years of lower positions, and you must 
learn to write." The boy could not see why, 
and went to find work elsewhere, before Im- 
proving his writing. 

There are a great many people just like 
that boy. They expect to be managers, super- 
intendents, presidents, but they don't see that 
they must work up to it, and every step must be 
faithfully and patiently taken. 

Some boys expect to be good at long di- 
vision, and they do not take any pains to learn 
subtraction thoroughly. Or they expect to 
be good in English, and will not study gram- 
mar. They are like the boy in this story. 

Some girls expect to appear like ladles, but 
they pay no attention to what their mothers 
say about neatness, — such as keeping their hair 
In order and their shoes clean. These girls 
are also like the boy of the story. 



6o FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

Most things worth while in life have to be 
worked for, and as you cannot well get up- 
stairs at one jump, but must take the steps be- 
tween one by one, so the good things of life 
come by patiently filling In each task with care 
and faithfulness. Then the big things will take 
care of themselves. 



A TALE ABOUT WORDS 

Boys and girls like fairy-tales. So my sermon 
to-day is to be in that form. This fairy-tale 
comes from France, and it is told by Katherine 
Pyle in her book, ^Tairy-Tales from Many 
Lands/' 

A widow had two daughters. One was 
coarse and slovenly, with an ugly disposition, 
but because she resembled her mother the 
woman loved her and thought her beautiful. 
The other daughter had hair like gold and a 
complexion like a pink rose, while her eyes were 
as blue as the sky. She was sweet-tempered 
and kind, but her mother hated her, and gave 
her all the hardest work to do and the poorest 
food to eat. 

One day she gave her a heavy jug and sent 
her into the forest to bring water for her sister. 
When the girl reached the spring she was tired 
and sad, and sat weeping on the stone. Pres- 
ently a voice behind her asked for a drink, and 
6i 



62 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

she turned and saw a withered old woman sit- 
ting there. So she gently raised the jug to the 
woman's lips, and then refilled It and started 
home. 

But the old woman called her back and 
said: "Daughter, you have helped one who Is 
able to repay you for your kindness. Every 
word you speak shall be a pearl or a rose." 
The girl hastened home. Her mother met her 
with scolding words, asking her why she had 
been so long. And when her daughter ex- 
plained to her, lo ! every word she spoke was 
a pearl or a rose. The greedy old woman 
snatched up the pearls and left the roses. 

Then she called her other daughter, — the 
ugly one, — told her what had happened, and 
said: "Hasten, daughter! Take the silver 
pitcher and run to the fountain. If the fairy 
has given these for a drink from a jug, what 
will she give for a drink from a silver pitcher!" 

The girl sulked off to the fountain swinging 
the pitcher and loitering along the way. When 
she reached there no old woman was in sight, 
but beside the spring was a tall, beautiful young 



A TALE ABOUT WORDS 63 

woman who asked her for a drink. The ugly 
one replied, "There is the pitcher, draw the 
water for yourself." 

When she was about to go, the young 
woman said sharply: "Stop! the words that 
fall from your lips are evil things, and they 
shall look like the things they are. Every word 
you speak shall be a spider or a snake, until 
you learn to speak kindly." 

The girl trudged off home scarcely thinking 
about what the woman said, little knowing that 
it was the same fairy who had spoken to her 
sister. But when she began to answer her 
mother, spiders and snakes dropped from her 
lips, and she was very much frightened. 

I wonder whether our words would be 
pearls or spiders if we could see them? Let 
us make them pearls. 



SUFFOCATED TREES 

We sometimes hear of people being suffocated 
by gas, but it is not often we hear of trees be- 
ing suffocated. 

But the other day I was walking down the 
street, and noticed that all the trees on one side 
of the avenue for several blocks were dead. 
They looked as if they had been fine, strong, 
healthy trees, and I could not understand why 
they had all died, until I was told that a gas- 
pipe beneath their roots had leaked, and that 
the escaping gas had killed the trees. 

I am sure you and I know people who are 
like those dead trees : they have become dis- 
couraged and wilted, and if you and I could 
dig down into their lives we should probably 
find something like that poisonous gas which 
has ruined them. 

Sin is the most poisonous thing that gets 
into one's hfe. 

If a boy or girl has done wrong and is 

64 



SUFFOCATED TREES 65 

hiding it from his father and his mother, and 
his conscience is pricking him all the time, then 
he cannot be sunny and healthy like a growing 
tree. He becomes cross and easily provoked, 
and is sulky and wilted. 

If you have done something wrong, which 
you ought to tell your parents about, do not go 
to sleep until you have told them. If you do, 
you will wake in the morning with dread, and 
you will go around all day with a dull ache 
which will spoil all the sunshine. Moreover, 
If you begin keeping secrets from your parents 
In this way you will have no one to check you 
in your misdeeds. Your parents may punish 
you, but they are the best friends you have. 
And besides, there is no punishment like hiding 
a feeling of guilt. The next best thing after 
keeping from doing wTong is to own up to It 
in an honest way when you have done wrong. 
Many a boy and girl would have been saved 
untold trouble if they had only been frank 
with their parents. One of the saddest days 
in any boy's or girl's life Is when they first keep 
a guilty secret from their parents. 



ULYSSES AND THE SIRENS 

When you boys and girls get older and further 
along in school, you will probably learn of a 
famous Greek whose name was Ulysses. He 
was noted as a heroic seaman, who travelled 
over dangerous seas and into unknown lands. 

In one of the seas where Ulysses sailed was 
an island known as the Isle of the Sirens. The 
sirens would attract sailors to their shores by 
beautiful music. But when the sailors drew 
near the land they would irresistibly cast them- 
selves into the sea, to their destruction. 

Now Ulysses had heard of the sirens 
through Circe, and he wanted to hear the 
maidens sing, but he did not want to come 
within their power. So this is the way he man- 
aged it. One day he put wax in the ears of 
all his sailors, so that they could not hear 
the music, and then had himself strapped 
to the mast. Then he ordered the sailors to 
row near enough to the island for him to hear 
the music. In this way he heard the singing, 
but did not get caught. 
66 



ULYSSES AND THE SIRENS 67 

That was a clever way of getting tempted, 
and yet not getting caught, was it not? But 
someone has said in a joke It would have been 
better if Ulysses had had an orchestra on board 
which would have made better music than 
the sirens. Then neither Ulysses nor the 
sailors would have been tempted to go too near 
the dangerous Isle. 

That is a pretty good way of dealing with 
all kinds of temptation, — not by trying to keep 
temptation out, but by putting something more 
attractive In Its place. If you are tempted to 
go to the moving pictures, when you were told 
not to, do not simply stand around outside the 
place with nothing else to do. Go off and play 
something which will be more attractive than 
moving pictures. If you are told that you must 
not go fishing, don't sulk around wishing that 
you could go. Just go at baseball or something 
else, and soon you will have forgotten about 
the other thing. 

Always put something else In the place of 
the thing you are not to do, and It will help 
you to overcome temptation. 



POISON-LABELS 

You have all seen bottles of poison, and you 
know when your father or mother buys poison 
from the druggist there is a label on the bottle 
marked "POISON" in large letters, and on the 
label is a picture of a skull and crossbones. 
This is done to warn people from drinking the 
poison. 

Now, if a druggist were to put clear, pure 
water into a bottle, and put a label marked 
*'Poison" on it, no one would drink the water 
if he were choking, for fear of being poisoned. 

And there are boys and girls just like that 
good, pure, fresh water with the poison-label 
on it. They are good at heart. They are kind 
and unselfish and obedient, but nobody will 
have anything to do with them because they 
put such terrible poison-labels upon themselves. 

I will tell you what some of these poison- 
labels are which frighten people away from 
boys and girls. One of them is slang. Now, 
6S 



POISON-LABELS 69 

of course, some girls and boys who are In- 
wardly little ladles and gentlemen use slang, 
but usually slang is used by low-bred people 
who have not words enough to say what they 
want to. And consequently when you use slang, 
if people do not know that you are well-bred 
boys and girls, they think that you are coarse 
and vulgar, and they will have nothing to do 
with you. 

Another poison-label that boys sometimes 
stick on is swearing. And of course that is 
always bad-mannered. Another Is smoking. 
Another is bad company. I knew a boy who 
was really good at heart, but who persisted in 
going with bad boys, and no business man In 
town would take him Into his business because 
of that terrible label. 

Girls sometimes wear such poison-labels as 
forwardness; that Is, they are always making 
themselves heard and seen. Others are proud. 
Others chew gum. 

I have not time to mention all of these dif- 
ferent labels. You can think of them for your- 
selves. What I want to say is that It is too 



70 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

bad for such good, useful, well-intentioned and 
wholesome boys and girls to put on labels which 
lead people to think less of them than they 
should think. For by these things they spoil 
their chances of getting Into the company of 
well-bred people. 



LIES THAT WALK 

We usually think of a lie as a thing that is 
spoken. But there are other kinds of lies. 
Some girls that I once knew went to an office 
in New York and bought some labels with the 
pictures and names of hotels in Europe printed 
on them. They pasted these on their suit-cases. 

Now, as you probably know, when people 
go to Europe some of the hotels paste labels 
on your suit-cases and trunks when they take 
your baggage to the station. Some people 
come home with their baggage quite covered 
over with these slips of paper, and one can 
easily see by these labels what a long distance 
the owners of the luggage have traveled. 

These girls who bought those labels in New 
York, but had never been to Europe, were try- 
ing to make people believe that they, too, had 
traveled in foreign countries. 

Of course you know what that sort of de- 
ception means : it is telling a lie without speak- 
ing it. 

71 



^2 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

So you see these lies went with the suit- 
cases. And wherever those girls carried their 
bags, the lies walked along with them, and said 
to everyone who looked at them, "Our owners 
have been to Europe." 

Of course, no self-respecting boy or girl 
would do such a thing. But you must also be 
careful not to act falsehoods by pretending 
things in school, or acting at home as if you 
don't know about things when you do. Don't 
try to fool yourselves, then you will not try to 
fool other people. 



WELLINGTON AND THE SOLDIER 

No BOY likes to be called a coward, and some 
boys do things that are dangerous for fear that 
their friends will think they have no courage. 
Sometimes it is more cowardly to do a danger- 
ous thing like that than not to do it. 

Do not think that you are a coward be- 
cause you are afraid of dangerous things. 
Some of the bravest men the world ever saw 
have been afraid, but in spite of their fear they 
went firmly on. 

A story is told of Lord Wellington, a great 
English general, who saw a young man in his 
army who was white with fear just before a 
battle, and yet did not run away. Lord Well- 
ington said : "There is a brave man. He knows 
the danger, and yet he faces it." Another story 
is told of a soldier who was making fun of a 
second who was badly frightened just before 
battle. The frightened soldier said to the 
other one : "Yes, I am afraid. And if you were 

73 



74 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

half as much afraid as I am, you would run 
away." 

The lesson I want to draw is this, that it is 
not cowardly to be afraid of things which have 
danger in them. It is cowardly to run away 
if you ought to face them. And if you ought 
not to face them it is cowardly to go headlong 
Into them, just because of some other boy's 
foolish dare. 

I remember a playmate who used to bite 
the heads off the fish he caught, just because 
another boy dared him to. It used to make 
him terribly sick, but he was too much of a 
coward not to do it. Some boys take up smok- 
ing and drinking and swearing for the same 
reason. Any boy who does that sort of thing 
is a coward. 



ABRAHAM'S GUEST 

You have all heard of Abraham, who went out 
from his home in Ur of the Chaldees to find 
God. And you remember how he dwelt in 
tents, and had hundreds of cattle. And you 
know how good he was to his nephew. Lot. 

There is a story told about Abraham which 
you will not find in the Bible. Abraham re- 
ceived into his tent one day an aged traveler. 
After he had invited the traveler to dine with 
him at his sunset meal, Abraham went out to 
offer up his evening sacrifice to God. But the 
traveler would not join him in prayer and 
thanksgiving. Abraham was angry because of 
the old man's lack of religion, and drove him 
from his tent. 

Later in the evening the angel of the Lord 
appeared to Abraham and asked him why he 
had driven out the old man. Abraham re- 
pHed: 

*'Lord, he refused to acknowledge Thee !" 

75 



76 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

The Lord replied: "What! I have borne 
with this old man for eighty years, and you 
could not bear with him for two days !" After 
that, so the story goes, Abraham helped every- 
one who came along, no matter what his reli- 
gious belief might be. 

That is a good story for boys and girls to 
remember when they feel that they cannot for- 
give someone who has done them a wrong. 
What would become of you if God never for- 
gave you when you did wrong? It is this spirit 
of forgiveness that Christ means to teach us 
when He says in the Lord's Prayer, ^'Forgive 
us our debts as we forgive our debtors." If, 
then, you say that prayer and refuse to forgive 
anyone who has done you a wrong, you mean 
that you want to have God act just as unfor- 
giving with you as you are with your enemies. 
That would be terrible, — to ask God not to 
forgive you. None of us would dare pray 
like that. 

You remember Peter came to Christ once 
and asked how often we were to forgive people. 
Peter thought seven times was enough. But 



ABRAHAM'S GUEST ^^ 

Christ said, ** No, you must forgive until sev- 
enty times seven." That would be four hundred 
and ninety times. Christ did not mean exactly 
that many times. But He meant more times 
than you can think. That Is, if you are a fol- 
lower of Christ you are to forgive a person as 
often as he is sorry for having done you a 
wrong, and comes to you and asks your for- 
giveness. 



ABOUT GENEROSITY 

When we speak of a person as being generous 
we usually think of someone who gives his 
money, or w^hatever belongs to him, freely to 
others. But did you ever think that people 
can be generous with their thoughts, too? 

Let me show you what I mean by that. 
There were once two boys who went to visit at 
a farm where they kept Shetland ponies, and 
of course both boys wanted to ride them. So 
one day they persuaded the man in charge of 
the ponies to put the saddle on a handsome 
black one and lead him out into the yard for 
them to mount. But when it came to actually 
getting on the pony's back, the younger boy 
was afraid. Although the older boy urged 
him, he would not take a ride. Finally the 
other boy mounted and rode gaily off, and 
came back beaming with delight. But instead 
of being proud, and thinking the other boy 
cowardly, he went over to the younger lad and 

78 



ABOUT GENEROSITY 79 

said: "Now you get on. I know you can ride 
him." And when at last the other did ride 
off, the older boy's eyes danced with delight, 
and he clapped his hands to encourage the 
younger boy. That is one of the best forms 
of generosity. 

Another illustration of it is when you are 
on a baseball or football team, or in a contest 
of any sort, to be able to say when you are 
honestly beaten that you were beaten by a bet- 
ter team. When you can say that, it takes half 
the sting out of defeat and makes those who 
win admire you more than ever. 

Don't be stingy with your thoughts about 
people. Always think the best about others, 
and believe the best, and you will grow to be 
open-hearted, friendly, lovable and big. 



SUN AND WIND 

Once upon a time, according to an old fable, 
the sun and the northwind had a contest to see 
which could take a man's coat off the more 
quickly. 

The northwind tried first. It gathered to- 
gether all its forces in its own corner of the 
earth, and then rushed forth upon this man 
who was walking along a country-road. The 
wind blew and blew, and it seemed as if the 
traveller's coat would be blown from his back 
or torn to tatters. But the harder the north- 
wind blew the tighter the man drew his coat 
about him, and the wind could not get it off 
his back. After it had spent all its force it 
gave up in despair. 

Then the sun had its turn. It came out 
without noise or violence like the northwind. 
It did not whistle in the treetops nor bluster 
through the bushes. It did not buffet nor strug- 
gle with the man. It just went on pouring forth 
its heat. And it seemed as if it could never 
80 



SUN AND WIND 8i 

win, any more than the northwlnd. But soon 
the traveller took out his handkerchief and 
wiped the perspiration from his face. Then, 
before long, he took off his hat. Soon he un- 
buttoned his coat, and finally he took it off of 
his own accord. The sun had won the contest 
against the northwind! 

Now, a fable is meant to teach a lesson. 
The lesson of this fable is that gentleness wins 
where only strength and rudeness fail. If 
some one has done you a wrong, the way to 
deal with him is not to try to "get even'' with 
him, as we say. Nor is the best way to get 
angry with him and scold him. The Bible tells 
us that the way to overcome your enemy is to 
do good for evil, for it says by so doing you 
will ''heap coals of fire upon his head." 

Usually it is the weak people who bluster 
like the northwind, and storm and brag. 
Strong people are usually quiet. There is an 
old saying that "if you are right you can afford 
to keep your temper, and if you are wrong you 
cannot afford to lose it." Be gentle. You will 
win more that way than by getting angry. 



THE BOY AND THE TURTLE 

Theodore Parker was one of the greatest 
preachers America ever had, and this story Is 
told of him as a boy. One day, as he was 
going across the fields, he came to a pond where 
he saw a small turtle sunning Itself upon a stone 
which rose out of the water. The boy picked 
up a stick, and was about to strike the turtle, 
when a voice within him said, "Stop!" His 
arm paused In midair and, startled, he ran 
home to ask his mother what the voice meant. 
Tears came into his mother's eyes as she took 
the boy In her arms and told him that it was his 
conscience which had cried "Stop!" Then she 
told him that his conscience was the voice of 
God, and that his moral safety depended upon 
his heeding that inner voice. 

The same thing Is true of all boys and girls. 
If you obey that inner voice In questions of 
right and wrong. It will speak to you clearly. 

But if you neglect It, it will grow silent, 
82 



THE BOY AND THE TURTLE 83 

and you will be left in darkness and in doubt 
as to what is right and wrong. 

Some people call this voice the "inner 
light," and that is a very good name for it. 
Every time you walk by the light you put fresh 
oil in the lamp, and the light grows stronger 
and the way clearer. 

Whenever that inner voice speaks to you 
and tells you that a thing is wrong, don't argue 
with the voice and give reasons for doing the 
thing that is wrong. Obey the voice at once, 
as Parker did, and it will save you endless 
trouble. 



THE BOY AND THE NICKEL 

A MAN once found a boy crying on the street, 
and asked the little chap what he was crying 
about. The child told him he had just lost 
a nickel. The stranger gave him another, and 
then the boy began to cry again. This greatly 
astonished the man, and he asked him why he 
was crying again. The little chap said, *'Be- 
cause, If I hadn't lost that other nickel, I'd 
have two now." 

That was, of course, a very foolish way to 
look at It, but that is the way a great many 
people look at things. This Is what Is called 
covetousness. Covetous people always want 
something they have not, and so they are usu- 
ally unhappy. 

The way to be happy is to think of the 
things you have, and not of the things you 
have not. A man was once told that Caesar 
was going to cause him great unhappiness, and 
he replied that if Cassar could blot out the sun 

84 



THE BOY AND THE NICKEL 85 

with a blanket he might make him unhappy. 
But if he had the sun to shine upon him, he 
would still be happy. We all have the sun to 
shine upon us, and other things a-plenty to be 
happy over, if we will just count them up. Let 
us not be like the little boy crying about the 
nickel he did not have. 



THE THREE FATES 

Boys and girls in ancient Greece believed that 
there were three fates, In the form of three 
women seated above the clouds, who spun the 
thread of everyone's life, and cut it off with 
shears when death came. 

We no longer believe In such things, but we 
still speak of fate. Boys and girls sometimes 
say that they are fated to fail in examinations, 
and so think they cannot help failing. But that 
Is no more true than the belief about the three 
women which the Grecian boys and girls held. 
As a matter of fact, nothing outside of us 
makes evil things happen to us. We make our 
own fates. Or shall I say, we are our own 
fates? Someone has said, "Our fates lie asleep 
along the roadside until we waken them." 
That Is very true, as I think I can show you 
by a story. 

Not long ago I was riding on a train up 
through Vermont. A boy came Into the car 
86 



THE THREE FATES S7 

selling papers, books, candy, fruit, and other 
things. There was a boy opposite me in 
the smoking-car who wanted to appear very 
smart and manly. He was smoking a cigar 
and looking very much traveled. The train- 
boy offered him a book which had a bad title 
and worse pictures in it. But in front of this 
young chap sat two bright-faced, innocent-look- 
ing boys who did not pretend to be anything 
but what they were. The trainboy offered 
them salted peanuts. In front of those boys 
sat a fine, clean-looking, well-bred man. The 
trainboy offered him a good, wholesome book. 
Now, three fates were in that car in the 
form of that trainboy, and each person invited 
his own kind of fate by what he was in himself. 
That is true all through life. Be true, and you 
attract truth. Be evil, and you attract evil. 
Your fate is what you are. 



THE INCH-WORM AND THE MOUN- 
TAIN 

Out In the state of California there is a great 
valley known as the Yosemite Valley, and here 
once lived a tribe of Indians who tried to ex- 
plain how the wonderful streams and trees and 
rocks came to be. 

The story of one of the highest peaks, 
El Capitan, is very interesting. One day some 
Indian boys went fishing in a beautiful lake in 
the Yosemite, and after they had grown tired 
they lay down in the sun upon a rock beside 
the lake. They soon fell fast asleep. How 
long they slept they did not know, but when 
they awoke they found that during their sleep 
the rock on which they lay had been stood on 
end, so that they were now nearly a mile high 
in the air and had no means of getting down. 
They were in a bad plight. 

But the animals In the valley which were 
friendly to mountaineers saw their misfortune 
and held a conference as to how to help the boys 
88 



INCH-WORM AND MOUNTAIN 89 

get down. They decided that the only thing 
to do was to try to climb up the face of the 
cliff. But the rock was too steep, and so they 
tried to jump up. First the raccoon tried it, 
then the bear, then the squirrel, then the fox, 
and finally the mountain-goat. It was all to 
no avail, however, and they gave up in dis- 
couragement, and were about to leave the boys 
to perish, when the inch-worm came along and 
offered her services. The animals laughed her 
to scorn. What could she do, with her snail- 
pace, when they all, who were so fleet of foot, 
had to give it up ! 

But she would not be laughed out of her 
purpose, and she began to climb up the cliff. 
Slowly, Inch by inch, she crawled up, so slowly 
that it seemed as if she would take a thousand 
years to get there. But as she passed crag 
after crag the animals below ceased making 
fun of her and began to shout encouragement. 
At last she reached the top. And then the 
Great Spirit turned her into a huge butterfly 
so strong that she flew down, with the boys on 
her back, to safety. 



90 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

There Is a verse in the Old Testament 
which says that the race is not always to the 
swift, which means that it is not always the 
strongest who win. It is the one who keeps 
at it. Many a bright boy fails in school be- 
cause the lessons come so easily he does not 
work. Many a dull boy wins because he sticks 
to it and plods away. 

If you are tempted to trust too much to 
your brightness, remember the animals who 
made fun of the inch-worm. If you are dull, 
remember the inch-worm, take courage, and 
plod away. You will get there sometime. 



THE FRENCH DRUMMER-BOY 

I WANT to tell you to-day of one of the bravest 
deeds ever done by a boy. 

It happened this way. Back in the year 
1793, when the French people were having 
trouble with their king and queen, and finally 
put them to death, the rulers called in soldiers 
from other nations to help them against their 
own people. The foreign soldiers met the 
French troops before a town called Maubeuge, 
and there a fierce battle was fought. 

The fiercest part of the fighting was carried 
on against Hungarian Grenadiers, who held 
the market-place of the town. During this 
charge a drummer-boy in the French army saw 
that his countrymen were having a hard time 
of it, so he slipped around back of these Hun- 
garian soldiers to the other side of the market- 
place, right in the thick of the enemy, and there 
drummed the charge, in order to make his com- 
rades think that some of the French soldiers 
8 91 



92 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

had already pushed through the enemy's ranks, 
and so encourage the others to push on. 

Many years after, In digging up the ground 
about the market-place, the little bones of that 
drummer-boy were found buried alongside the 
bones of the tall Hungarian men amongst 
whom he had fallen. The French people have 
put up a statue to his memory in the town of 
Avesnes, and he is shown still beating the 
charge on his drum, and looking out toward the 
frontier whence the enemy of his people came. 



A KING IN THE STUFF 

In the early days of the history of the children 
of Israel the people were ruled by judges, and 
it was not until they saw the nations round 
about them under the leadership of kings that 
they desired a king of their own. In spite of 
the warnings of the old prophet Samuel, they 
demanded a king, and Samuel chose a young 
man, afterwards King Saul, to be their ruler. 

But when the people came together to make 
Saul King they could not find him. They 
searched a long while, and finally God told them 
that Saul had hidden himself amongst the bag- 
gage. There they looked, and sure enough, as 
the old story says, there was a king "hid in 
the stuff.'' 

That was many hundreds of years ago, and 
kings are no longer made in that way. But the 
story has a meaning still for every boy. There 
is still a king hid in the stuff that goes to make 
up every boy. A great many things about a 

93 



94 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

boy in which he hides his kingship seem no 
better than the worthless stuff in which Saul 
hid. There are mistakes, outbursts of temper, 
laziness, selfishness, impatience, deceit, and 
cruelty. But hidden beneath all that, God 
would have you remember that there is still a 
king hid in the stuff. 

A story is told of the son of Louis XVI of 
France, whose father and mother were put to 
death by the people. He was thus left an 
orphan, and was sent to live with a wicked man 
and woman who tried to teach him all manner 
of wrongdoing. But when they tried to per- 
suade him to do wrong, he would refuse, and 
say that he was a king's son, and would some 
day be king himself, therefore he could not 
stoop so low. 

I wish every boy, when he is tempted to 
do some unmanly thing, would remember his 
kingship, too. You are not the son of an earthly 
king, but you are each the son of a Heavenly 
King, and you, too, have the making of a king 
in you. You are too great to do mean things. 
There is an old hymn which runs like this: 



A KING IN THE STUFF 95 

"My Father is rich in houses and lands, 
He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands; 
Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold 
He has gone to prepare us a mansion untold. 
I'm the child of a King, the child of a King, 
With Jesus my Saviour, I'm the child of a King." 

And when you would do a mean thing, ask 
yourself if that is worthy of your kingship. 
Remembex also that only those who live Kingly 
lives are worthy to enter the Kingdom of 
Heaven. 



BREAD AND WINE 

This Is Communion Sunday, when the Church 
celebrates what is known as "the Sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper." You remember that on 
the night before Christ was crucified He gath- 
ered His twelve disciples together that He 
might have a quiet meal and talk with them. 
And it is that Last Supper, as it is known, which 
we call to mind when we observe Communion 
Sunday. 

The first Christians did not have commun- 
ion on Sunday. They used to have a common 
meal together on weekdays, and at a neigh- 
hour's house. At these meals they would recall 
the sayings of Jesus and His loving deeds. 

But Christ not only had the Last Supper 
with His disciples, and taught them to remem- 
ber Him in the breaking of the bread: He also 
gave them the lesson about the bread and the 
wine by which to remember Him. 

You know how bread is made. Grains of 
wheat are put in the ground by the farmer, 

96 



BREAD AND WINE 97 

and these grains give up their lives in order 
that other grains may grow on the stalk at 
harvest-time. Then these grains are gathered 
in, and finally ground into flour. Christ also 
gave up His life just as those first grains of 
wheat in the ground. And He meant to tell 
us by the bread at communion that if we are 
to help other people we must be willing to give 
up our own selfish desires for their sake. 

By the wine at communion Christ meant to 
teach us that just as the branch of a grapevine 
must be attached to the stalk before there can 
be grapes, so you and I must keep close to 
Christ in order to be able to live the life of 
unselfishness which shows that we are His fol- 
lowers. He says: ''I am the vine, ye are the 
branches. Without me ye can do nothing." 

After Christ's death, whenever the disciples 
took their meal together, they would think of 
Christ, and they would forgive one another and 
become more gentle and loving. Whenever we 
see the communion-table prepared, we also 
must think of Christ, forgive those who have 
wronged us, and try still harder to be unselfish 
and kind. 



THE FIRST CHRISTMAS CAROL 

In England on Christmas eve boys and girls 
and men and women go about the streets sing- 
ing Christmas carols, or songs, at the doors of 
people's houses, and the people for whom they 
sing give them tokens of their good-will. The 
first verse of one of the oldest and best Christ- 
mas carols is as follows: 

"God rest you merry, gentlemen; 
Let nothing you dismay, 
For Christ was born of Mary 
Upon a Christmas Day." 

That is a very beautiful carol, but there is 
one still more beautiful. It is the one the 
angels sang the night that Christ was born : 

"Glory to God in the highest. 
Peace on earth to men of good-will." 

This means that people who have good- 
will in their hearts toward other people will 
have peace on earth. And how very true that 
is! People generally act toward us the same 

98 



FIRST CHRISTMAS CAROL 99 

way in which we act toward them. If we are 
cross, others are cross; but if we are warm- 
hearted and loving, then people are warm- 
hearted toward us. It is just like seeing your 
face in a looking-glass. If you frown, the face 
in the mirror will frown. If your face is smil- 
ing, the one in the mirror will be smiling. That 
is another way of saying that you get what you 
give. 

Christ came into the world to teach us how 
to have good-will to men, and from our good- 
will to get happiness. Any boy or girl who 
faithfully tries to be like Christ, and to do as 
he believes Jesus would do if He were in his 
place, will grow to have this good-will in his 
heart. Then some day he will sing as the 
angels did, "Glory to God in the highest," for 
he will know God's peace. Christ said, 
"Blessed are the peace-makers." 

Here is a verse for you to take as a motto : 

"Where are you going? Never mind. 
Just follow the road that says, *Be kind,' 
And do the duty that nearest you lies, 
For that is the road to Paradise." 



A HINT FROM A CARIBOU 

This Is an animal-story. It is about a caribou. 
A caribou Is a kind of reindeer, and lives in 
Canada. 

One day a man was out in a stumpy pasture- 
field beside a woods in Canada, and he saw a 
mother caribou and her little calf feeding 
quietly down In a valley nearby. 

He was on a little hill some distance away, 
but the wind was blowing in the direction of 
the caribou. Presently the mother caribou 
raised her head, sniffed the air, and looked in 
the direction where the man was hidden be- 
hind a stump. She had caught the scent of a 
human being. That meant danger to her 
calf. Soon the mother caribou, leaving her 
calf in the valley, started in the direction of 
the man. He slipped from his hiding-place to 
another stump. On came the caribou till she 
reached the very stump behind which the man 
had first hidden. There she smelled the ground, 
lOO 



A HINT FROM A CARIBOU loi 

and then a strange thing happened. She called 
her calf to her, had It smell the ground, too, so 
as to get the scent of the man. When that was 
done, she got behind that little caribou and 
butted it down the valley as fast as it could go. 
Why did she do that? It was to teach her 
calf that whenever it got that scent on the air, 
there was danger, and it must get away as 
quickly as possible. 

Ever after that, even before the calf knew 
that this scent belonged to a man, or had seen 
a man, it would run away from it. 

Your parents are constantly doing for you 
what that mother caribou did for her little one. 
When they tell you that such and^ such a thing 
is wrong, and you must not do It; when again 
they tell you there is danger In going to a cer- 
tain place, or in chumming with a particular 
boy or girl, they are again doing the same thing 
for you. And when they punish you, as that 
mother caribou did her calf, It is because they 
know the danger far better than you, and they 
know that your safety depends upon keeping 
away from such things. 



I02 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

Then, bye and bye, perhaps, as you grow 
older, you will begin to see for yourself what 
the danger meant, just as the little caribou 
might some day see a hunter for Itself. And 
then you will no longer think your parents cruel 
or strict; you will be thankful that they were 
so wise and kind. 



THE REPENTANCE OF SAMUEL 
JOHNSON 

When you begin to study English literature 
you will hear a great deal about Samuel John- 
son, who wrote one of the first English dic- 
tionaries, and was a great scholar. Johnson's 
father was a bookseller, who used to have a 
little shop in the market-place, where he sold 
books on market-days. One day, when John- 
son was a boy, his father took sick and asked 
Samuel to go to the market-place and sell books 
for him. Johnson was ashamed of such work, 
and refused to go. 

But many years afterward, when he had 
become an old man and was back on a visit to 
his native village, he was missed from break- 
fast one morning by the friends with whom 
he was staying. On his return at supper-time 
he told his friends how he had spent the day. 
It was fifty years ago that day when he had 
refused to help his father. He says: *'To do 
103 



I04 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

away with the sin of this disobedience, I this 
day went In a post-chaise to Uttoxeter, and 
going into the market at the time of high 
business, uncovered my head and stood with It 
bare an hour before the stall which my father 
had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of 
standers-by and the inclemency of the weather; 
a penance by which I trust I have propitiated 
Heaven for this only instance, I believe, of 
contumacy to my father." 

That is a story worth remembering when 
you are ashamed of doing something which 
your parents have asked you to do, perhaps to 
carry a parcel on the street or to mow the 
lawn. You will see sometime, I hope, that all 
honest work, if It is well done, is a thing to 
be proud of, instead of to be ashamed of. But 
It may be too lafe then. Your parents may 
have died, and you, like Johnson, will come 
back with deep sorrow to think how you had 
disobeyed and forsaken them when they needed 
you. The way to save yourselves such heart- 
ache is to be obedient to your parents as long 
as they live. 



EASTER 

Once upon a time a Persian king was march- 
ing westward with a great army to fight against 
Greece. In the evening, after the army had 
encamped for the night, someone found the 
king looking over the host of people spread out 
before him, and he was In tears. When he 
was asked the cause of his sadness, he replied 
that he had been thinking that one hundred 
years from that time not one of all these men 
in his army would be alive. 

That was long before Christ lived, and had 
risen from the dead on Easter morning. These 
people had no Easter. They did not believe 
in the sort of everlasting life in which we be- 
lieve. And even long after the resurrection 
of Christ there were many people in Greece 
and Rome who had not heard the wonderful 
news. Here Is a letter that someone wrote 
over a hundred years after that first Easter to 
a mother whose son had just died: 
105 



io6 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

*T was much grieved, and shed as many 
tears over your son as I did over my own, 
and I did everything that was fitting, as so 
did my whole family. . . . But still there 
is nothing one can do In the face of such 
trouble. So I leave you to comfort your- 
selves. Good-bye." 

If these people had known about our Easter 
they would not have felt so hopeless and sad. 
For since Christ has risen from the dead, we 
know that all who love Him and try to be like 
Him shall also rise from the dead, and be with 
Him in a life beyond the grave. 

He said to His disciples before He was 
crucified: "In my Father's house are many 
mansions; if it were not so I would have told 
you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And 
If I go and prepare a place for you I will come 
again and receive you unto myself; that where 
I am, there ye may be also." When we know 
this, then to die is not so terrible as it was to 
the Persians and Greeks. It is like going to 
sleep in our home, and waking up in a place 



EASTER 107 

much more beautiful than we had ever dreamed 
of, and being with Christ, the Friend of little 
children, forever. But we must know Christ 
in this life if we are to enjoy His friendship in 
the next. 
9 



THE WHISPERING GALLERY 

If you ever go to London, one of the many 
buildings which will be pointed out to you will 
be Saint Paul's Cathedral, which is capped by 
a wonderful dome. And if you ask the guide, 
he will show you in that dome a strange room 
known as the "Whispering Gallery." In this 
gallery your lowest whisper can be heard on 
the other side of the room, a great distance 
away. It would be hard to tell secrets in a 
room like that. 

But there is a still more wonderful whis- 
pering gallery than that. It is the one which 
each one of us carries about in his own soul. 
In that gallery even things we think, whether 
we say them or not, are heard by God, our 
Creator. No thought escapes Him. "In Him 
we live, and move, and have our being." If 
we "take the wings of the morning, and fly to 
the uttermost parts of the earth," even there 
God is still. 

io8 



THE WHISPERING GALLERY 109 

This would be a very terrible thing to 
realize if all our thoughts were evil thoughts, 
unkind and unlovely. For then we should be 
like the man who, when he was young, ill- 
treated his old father and mother. When he 
grew up, this young man became very wealthy, 
and he used to carry candy in his pocket as he 
walked in the parks to give to the children, be- 
cause he wanted their love. But the children 
would take his candy, then scamper away like 
frightened squirrels, because something inside 
seemed to tell them that the man was not really 
kind at heart. Older people felt the same 
way about him, and a chill came over them 
when they were with him. So they avoided 
him. It would be unbearable to think that only 
our evil thoughts were open to God in that way. 

But while God knows all the wickedness in 
our hearts, and we cannot hide anything from 
Him, God also knows the good thoughts that 
are whispered in the gallery of our soul. And 
when we wish ever so greatly that we could 
do something to help somebody, but cannot do 
it; or when we would like to be good, but are 



no FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

tripped up by some temptation, God knows 
then how hard we try, and gives us credit for 
our effort, even though we fail to do what we 
wanted to. 

Let us remember the Whispering Gallery 
of the soul, then, and when we think evil 
thoughts, even though we never tell them to 
our nearest friend, let us be sure God knows 
them. And when we try hard to be good and 
to do good, but fail, let us also remember that 
God sees it, even though none else knows. Our 
prayer each morning ought to be like the 
psalmist's: *'Let the words of my mouth, and 
the meditations of my heart be acceptable in 
Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my re- 
deemer." 



THE HE-SAID GIRL 

Sometimes, when I am walking along the 
street, I catch snatches of conversation as I 
pass by a group of little girls. And often I 
hear the phrase "He said" this, or "He said" 
that. There are girls who do not seem to talk 
about much else but what this boy or that boy 
has said, and these girls I call "he-said" girls. 
Now, of course it is all right for girls to 
think about the boys. We could not stop that 
if we would, and we would not stop it if we 
could. The danger comes when a girl thinks 
of little else. The girl who begins by devoting 
all her thought to boys is apt to end by being 
a very unattractive and unpopular sort of 
woman. Every girl ought to get along well 
with the girls of her own age as well as with 
the boys. There is something wrong with the 
girl who cannot get along with her girl friends. 
And so I say to you that if you do not want 
to be thoroughly unhappy as a woman, try to 
win the friendship of girls as well as boys. 
Ill 



112 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

A good plan for the ^'he-said'' girl is to 
take her father as her Ideal, and hero and 
lover. Then, as she grows to womanhood, she 
will not be satisfied with any man who is not 
in some measure as good as her father. In 
the meanwhile beware of being a "he-said" 
girl. 



ON DECK 

When I was a boy I belonged to a baseball 
team in the village where I lived, and when we 
played games with a team from another village 
we had a scorer who not only kept tally of the 
runs, but also told us who was to be the next at 
the bat. He would say, "So-and-so Is at the bat, 
So-and-so is on deck." And when he told a 
boy he was *'on deck," that boy knew he was 
to be the next one at the bat. 

Boys and girls are always on deck, whether 
they are playing ball or not, for a boy or girl 
never knows when he Is going to be called upon 
to play some part In the game called Life. 
And the strange thing about It Is, there is no 
scorer who tells you that you are on deck. So 
you never get any warning, and you may be 
on deck and not know It, and so miss your 
chance. 

Samuel, for Instance, was a boy who used 
to close the curtains and put out the candles 

113 



114 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

at night In the temple away back hundreds of 
years before Christ was born. One evening 
he had put out the lights and closed the cur- 
tains, just the same as he had a hundred times 
before, and then lay down to sleep. He little 
thought that this particular day he was on deck, 
and was to be called into the game by God. 
But that night God called him, and sent him 
on a very important errand that was to change 
his whole life and the history of his people. 

And things like that are happening in 
America to-day. I read a story the other day 
of a young student who was overtaken by a 
rainstorm, and borrowed an umbrella of a 
lawyer. He returned It a few days later with 
a note of thanks. Not long afterward he re- 
ceived a letter from the lawyer offering him a 
position in his office on account of his good 
handwriting. The student took the position, 
kept on with his studies in college, and after he 
graduated from college went right along in that 
office till he became a man of influence. He 
didn't know what it meant when he wrote that 
note. He was on deck. 



ON DECK IT5 

The lesson that I want to draw is this: 
That you must be on the lookout and do well 
the things that come to you each day, for who 
knows but you may be on deck that very day, 
and be called to play some important part? 
For only those are called who are on deck ; that 
is, ready to play. The boy or girl who does 
not do his work well day by day may miss his 
chance of being called to take some larger place 
in life when the times comes. Take this motto 
from the Old Testament: "Whatsoever thy 
hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." 



THE TERROR BY NIGHT 

In some parts of Canada, where the country 
Is still thinly settled by people, wild animals 
are quite numerous. In one of these commu- 
nities there once lived a boy who was in the 
village late one night. He had been at the 
village-store, and had heard the men talking 
about a wildcat that had been seen in that 
neighbourhood a short time before. 

The boy was not a coward, but when he 
started for his home, three miles away. In the 
country, he was nervous. Nothing happened, 
however, until he was climbing over a set of 
bars at the end of a lane leading through a 
piece of woods near his home. Then he heard 
the bushes moving and twigs crackling under 
the feet of some animal the other side of the 
lane-fence. He thought of the wildcat. He 
jumped to the ground, picked up a heavy stick 
he had seen under a tree on his way through 
that day and listened. Nearer and nearer came 
ii6 



THE TERROR BY NIGHT 117 

the rustling of the bushes, and every little while 
he could hear an animal sniff the air. Finally 
It came to the fence, clambered up opposite 
him. The boy raised his club and waited, and 
when the animal jumped down beside him, Its 
eyes shining In the darkness, he struck with all 
his might. Off the beast went Into the dark- 
ness. All was silence again, and the boy stood 
listening and trembling. Then from the top 
of a nearby hill he heard a dog howl with pain. 
He found, next morning, that it was only a 
neighbour's dog that had frightened him so. 

That boy Is not the only one who has seen 
things mistakenly, just because he was afraid. 
If you are dreading something, you will think 
that everything that happens brings the thing 
you dread. Usually nothing happens at all. 
The trouble was only in the person's mind, just 
as that wildcat was in the boy's mind, and so 
every noise he could not explain was a wildcat. 

I am sure David must have known some- 
thing about that fear when, as a boy, he 
watched his sheep out on the lonely hills at 
night. But David learned that there was One 



iiS FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

who was able to protect him by night as well 
as by day. It was God. And so he wrote of 
God: "He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 
God is thy keeper. God is thy shade upon thy 
right hand. Thou shalt not be afraid for the 
terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth 
by day; for the pestilence that walketh in dark- 
ness. ... It shall not come nigh thee." 

Let us remember that no real harm can 
come to us unless it comes from within our- 
selves. God is our protector. In His love 
we can trust by day, and in His care we can 
lay us down to sleep at night without a fear. 



THE BRAMBLE-BUSH KING 

There is a story in the Old Testament which 
says that once upon a time the trees gathered 
together to choose a king to rule over them. 

First they invited the ohve-tree; but the 
olive-tree said it was too busy bearing fruit. 
Then they asked the fig-tree to be king; but the 
fig-tree had its work to do, and also declined. 
Next they waited upon the vine with an invita- 
tion; but, like the others, it did not wish to be 
their king. 

Finally the trees asked the bramble to ac- 
cept the position, and the bramble gladly 
agreed. The first order it gave was for all the 
trees to take shelter under its branches or be 
burned with fire. That sounds just like a 
prickly, thorny, little bramble, does it not? 

That is usually the way of people who like 

to lord it over other people when they have no 

ability for it. There are some who want to 

do so when they are at a party. They want to 

119 



I20 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

be the hitching-post to which all the people are 
tied when they talk. If the bramble takes the 
form of a boy, he wants to be captain of his 
team, or he will not play. If it happens to be a 
girl, she insists upon everybody playing the 
game she wants, or she will go home in a sulk. 
These people cannot agree long with anybody. 
They are quarrelsome and peevish. 

Some boys and girls are like horses : they 
make good single-drivers, but they will not 
work with anyone else. Some horses go well 
enough alone, but when you hitch them with 
another horse they crowd, or bite, or kick it. 
They cannot "go double," as we say. That is 
the bramble-nature showing out in a horse. 

This IS a bad trait, whether you find it in 
a horse, a man or woman, a boy or girl. Christ 
says: "You know the rulers of the Gentiles 
lord it over them. Not so shall it be among 
you ; but whosoever would become great among 
you shall be your minister; and whosoever 
would be first among you shall be your serv- 
ant." Jesus also said, "I am meek and lowly 
in heart.' So must all His followers be. 



THE BRAMBLE-BUSH KING 121 

If you are getting any of the bramble- 
nature, and want to lord it over everybody, you 
had better give it up. Some of the unhappiest 
people in the world are bramble-bush kings. 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 

Our great-grandfathers and great-grandmoth- 
ers used to talk much about where heaven was. 
And some thought it was up above the clouds, 
and others thought It would be here on earth, 
after all the wickedness and selfishness were 
done away. Every one, however, used to think 
that the New Jerusalem, with its pearly gates 
and golden streets, was a real place like the 
cities of to-day. 

But we think of heaven more as the feeling 
in our hearts when we are happy from being 
with our friends, or when we have done right 
and unselfish things. We know what it is, then, 
to have heaven on earth. And when we have 
heaven on earth, we know pretty nearly what 
the real heaven is like. 

Let me show you what I mean. Not long 
ago a speaker in a rescue mission asked the 
children if they could tell him where heaven 
was. Immediately a boy from the poorest 
section of the city sprang up, raised his hand 

122 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 123 

and cried shrilly: "I know; I know." "Well, 
my boy, where is heaven?" the astonished 
leader asked. "Back in our street since mother 
got acquainted with Jesus," was the answer. 

That boy was on the right track. Whenever 
Christ comes into the heart there comes with 
Him love and thoughtfulness of others. And 
when we do kind things for others, we find 
happiness for ourselves, and that is heaven. 
Christ says, "If any man hear my voice and 
open the door, I will come in to him and sup 
with him and he with me." That means, when 
we do things that we believe Christ would like 
to have us do, then He comes in to sup with us. 
And when we feel Christ as our Companion, 
then it is heaven. 

We may go to a beautiful place called 
heaven when we die, but it will be Christ who 
will make the place full of joy and gladness. 
And if we are to see Him in that land and 
enjoy that heaven, we must first make a heaven 
here on earth for ourselves and others by try- 
ing to please Him and to be like Him every day. 
10 



THE CHRISTIAN ARMY 

Saint Paul, In writing to the Christians of his 
day, urges them to be "good soldiers of the 
Lord Jesus Christ." If every Christian is a 
soldier, then the Church ought to be called "the 
Christian Army." And this makes plainer to 
us what it means to join the Church. 

Armies, as you know, are divided into regi- 
ments, and regiments into companies. Every 
soldier in the army belongs to a certain com- 
pany. If a man said that he wanted to belong 
to the United States Army, but that he did not 
want to join any particular regiment or com- 
pany, but that he intended to be a soldier "in 
general," people would laugh at him. He 
would be like a man who took his gun and went 
out all alone to fight against Spain when we 
were at war with her. Or it would be as if a 
man in a city should say that he wanted to fight 
fire, but instead of joining a fire company, he 
would snatch up his pall and run alone to put 
out the fire every time there was an alarm. 
124 



THE CHRISTIAN ARMY 125 

Now, in the Christian army there are also 
regiments and companies. The different de- 
nominations, like the Presbyterians, the Metho- 
dists, the Baptists, the Congregationalists, and 
so on, are the regiments. The Churches like 
this and other Churches are the companies in 
the army. 

So, when anyone says he wants to make 
war on wickedness and to bring in the reign of 
love and peace and good-will which Christ 
started His Church to fight for, we ask him to 
join one of the companies of the Christian 
army. That is, we ask him to join a Church. 

You may ask if one cannot be a Christian 
outside of the Church. I answer, Yes, he can. 
But he is very much like the man with his pail 
running to put out the fire, or the lone soldier. 
He can do better work if he works with others. 
Furthermore, Christ said, "He that confesseth 
me before men, him will I confess before my 
Father which is in heaven, and he that denieth 
me before men, him will I deny before my 
Father which is in heaven." In joining the 
Church you confess Christ. 



126 FIFTY-TWO STORY TALKS 

You may ask me too, how old one should be 
before he can join the Christian army, known 
as the Church of God. I answer, there is no 
set age. Some boys and girls are ready to join 
before others. One little girl who was going 
to join the Church was told by some of the 
members of her Sunday-school class that she 
wasn't old enough. She replied, ^'Anyone who 
is old enough to know right from wrong is old 
enough to join the Church." If you are trying 
honestly day by day to be like Christ and to 
do His will, and you wish to be a better soldier 
of the cross, then you are ready to join the 
Church. 

In the Christian army there are old and 
young, rich and poor, wise and simple, all un- 
der the one flag, — the banner of the Cross; all 
under the one Captain, — even Jesus Christ. 
And the best thing about our Captain is, He 
has never lost a battle yet, and never will. All 
those who enlist under His flag are sure to 
win, and to hear God's "Well done." 



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